


The Questions

by Silvex



Series: Once in a Blue Moon [2]
Category: Persona 3
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Psychological Trauma, Recovered Memories, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23822308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvex/pseuds/Silvex
Summary: For there to be an Answer, there must first be a Question. Or several questions, each coming from a different source.In which SEES has to process everything, fails pretty badly at coping, and may finally be benefiting from remedial lessons in communication.
Series: Once in a Blue Moon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1716409
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

_ In truth, there hadn’t been much actually stopping Mitsuru from remembering the Dark Hour. Had she taken the moment to question just about anything about the past ten years, odds were it would have all come flooding back. _

_ The issue, therefore, was that she hadn’t stopped to question. So what if she felt a bit odd whenever the topic of her father’s death came up? Grief was funny like that. So what if she’d never actually needed to wear a jacket? There were plenty of people out there with high tolerance to cold, even if they didn’t usually express a preference for showers just a smidge above freezing, particularly in February. _

_ So what if she could see things more clearly than most? Nothing strange about being observant. _

_ (Shinjiro had been wrong, when he thought she wouldn’t be able to recognize his mannerisms. It was just that she never looked closely enough.) _

_ And as for the frost, or people listening to her without question? She’d always been able to do that. It was a little strange, but she was used to it. There was nothing to be concerned about. _

_ Sure, sometimes there was a prickling in the back of her mind that things hadn’t always been that way. (The part of her that is Artemisia is not the type to just let things go by, but neither is she the type to follow her electrically-inclined associate’s example and start throwing bricks around. Given that Artemisia is where Mitsuru’s powers of observation come from, she was doomed to failure from the start, even if the gaps in her memories were literally papered over.) But how else could things have been? She’d never known anything else. _

_ She was told that this was how things were supposed to be. That they were never meant to be anything else. And so she didn’t let herself think too deeply about it. _

_ Nothing is wrong. _

_ Everything is fine. _

_ This is how it was meant to be. _

_...Isn’t it? _

And that’s when she remembers.

* * *

  
  


The rooftop is so silent that you could hear a feather drop. Everyone’s gaze is drawn to Minato- no, to the person who stands in place of Minato. If Mitsuru’s intuition is correct, Minato hasn’t been here for over a month now. Not since the person taking his place started pinning his hair up with that paperclip.

“Then who are you?” Yukari asks, the joy from rekindling old friendships now gone from her voice. (Were she more in tune with her magic, a cutting breeze would be blowing across the roof.)

“He seems familiar, but I’m not sure where it comes from…” Yamagishi shrugs apologetically, clearly wishing she could be of more help. In reality, however, she’s more helpful than she realizes. Because she gives Mitsuru an idea.

As incredible as Yamagishi’s powers might be, as much as they allow her to see, the fact remains that she has had limited opportunities to use them. Any beings that she was exposed to, and that still exist, are beings that Mitsuru, too, has had a chance to observe, even if she’s no longer in the habit of committing such things to memory.

Even if she doesn’t recognize the person standing here, either, it’s worth a try.

So she looks. Draws upon whatever of her powers remain to peer past Minato’s body, and take a peek at the soul that is hiding. One with more power than the human body is meant to hold, who will strike back whenever he is put on the defensive, and who can recover from anything, if given the right impetus. (Her failure to find that impetus still weighs down on her, years later.)

Mitsuru knows this soul. She’s sure of it. Aside from herself, there are two beings who she will always be able to recognize, and it helps that the other one is standing right there. “...Shinjiro?” (She’s not scared of him, or of getting it wrong. What she’s scared of is what it means if she’s right. It sounds the same to him either way.)

And that gets his attention. She blinks, lets her power taper off as his gaze focuses on her. Not in the way that Minato would look at her, but familiar all the same.

“...Haven’t been called that in a while.” He sounds almost wistful when he says it, and his hand doesn’t leave his pocket. “Figures you’d be the first.” He’s quick to look away from her again, as though a large pebble at the edge of the fencing is the most interesting thing in the area.

“And Arisato?” Odds are he knows of their short-lived relationship, given that Mitsuru’s pretty sure he’s the one who ended it, but there are at least a dozen different ways that she’d prefer to tell the others about it, and this is nowhere close to making that list. (And she supposes that she doesn’t ever have to bring it up, if she doesn’t want to. Not so long as there’s no reason to talk about it.)

“Gone. He just… shoved me in here and took off without a word. Couldn’t say anything more than that.” He’s trying to sound nonchalant, she can tell, but it doesn’t really work. He’s too tense for that. As if he’s already preparing to flee.

Not that he’s given a real reason to. Everyone’s busy sorting out the implications of his words, trying to figure out how they should feel about this. Mitsuru, personally, is torn between being happy to have her friend back, upset that Minato is gone, and wondering why Minato left in the first place. (Why do people keep leaving her?)

“We do, of course, have a few theories,” Aigis speaks up, ignoring the glare that Shinjiro shoots her way. “However, none of them are very pleasant. It is best not to think about it too much.”

These words are not reassuring. (It’s hard to tell whether they were meant to be or not. It always takes a few tries for Aigis to master a new method of social interaction, and for obvious reasons, nobody ever asked her for reassurance before.)

But they’re all anyone has to offer.

The world has shifted back into place. If Mitsuru had bothered questioning anything, the answers would now be right there.

She can’t decide whether or not things really were better the other way.

* * *

  
  


As it turns out, this is one of the very rare occasions where SEES is lucky. They all remember everything, though whether it’s due to their promise or their Personas none of them are able to say, and for the most part they’re able to just… click back into place.

The various employees of the Kirijo Group who were involved in their nonsense? Not so much. Mitsuru has spoken to five people so far, and from what she can tell everyone either remembers nothing, figured something out from the various documents lying around and fried their brains with it, or didn’t survive the month due to being so disoriented that they wandered into traffic. (That last one only happened twice, but the very fact that it was more than once is worth noting. Honestly, it’s concerning that it even happened at all.)

Their amnesia is so absolute that even Aigis’ name means nothing to them. Which is probably going to create complications later down the line, but since when has anything in Mitsuru’s life not been complicated?

“I would like to… review those documents in your possession.” And to keep them away from people who apparently can’t look too closely at them without losing their sanity. Not that she has any idea what to do with them after. “Please send them to me at your earliest convenience.”

And that, as they say, is that.

“Any luck?” At some point in the past three hours, Shinjiro has managed to get his hands on a pair of scissors and snip away the fringe of hair that has always fallen in front of Minato’s right eye. It’s not the neatest job- the hair that remains is incredibly uneven- but if his goal was to not have to use a paperclip anymore, Mitsuru would call it a success.

She shakes her head and slips her phone back into her pocket. “It would appear that we are the only people who can remember anything about Shadows and Personas.”

It’s… not as scary as she’d thought it’d be. Maybe it’s because they no longer have to worry about monsters coming to break down their door. Maybe it’s because the involved adults were always either distant or malicious, and so nothing’s really changed. Maybe she’s still in shock from having her entire world turned on its head earlier.

But the fact is, having this secret just between all of them… she doesn’t really think she minds it. It’ll just make things a bit more complicated, and honestly, she would never have let Aigis go to school with them if she wasn’t willing to deal with things being complicated.

“Probably a good thing you all did remember.” Shinjiro is doing a better job of seeming nonchalant than he was earlier, not that that’s saying much. “Wouldn’t want Iori burning down the city just because he forgot he could.”

“...Do you really think he could do that?” She asks. Had someone asked her a few months ago, she would have said it was impossible. And yet, here they were, the Dark Hour having been gone for a while, and her still able to call on Artemisia’s powers, if only in small ways.

“Well, if you don’t believe me, you could try throwing something at me.” She seriously considers it, but then remembers that there’s a roughly fifty-percent chance of whatever she throws hitting her in the face. (She hasn’t lost that coin toss yet, but she recognizes that’s more for lack of opportunity.) “Also, I didn’t really give Aki a good explanation for anything I didn’t have to, but he was still giving off sparks, so…” And there it is. Her chance.

“I would have thought you would have confided more in Akihiko.”

“Yeah, well…” And, suddenly, he’s uncomfortable again. “There’s a lot of stuff he didn’t need to hear about.”

Mitsuru thinks she knows what those things might be. It’s all the things Akihiko would have been most desperate to know. (Well, that don’t involve electricity, and she honestly thinks that’s something he could have figured out on his own, eventually.)

Still, she’s also aware that she doesn’t really have any room to talk about withholding personally-important information. So she can’t really do anything more than look disapproving, and Shinjiro’s never cared about other people’s disapproving stares. And yet…

“I suppose you wouldn’t have really wanted to talk about it, either.” She doesn’t fully mean to say it, but her tongue is frictionless ice, and the words come spilling out with all the grace of an overexcited child who has never been skating before. Shinjiro doesn’t respond, instead wandering off somewhere.

Thinking about it, it’s not that surprising that he can impersonate Minato semi-convincingly. They’re a very similar brand of disinterested in the world around them. (It’s difficult to call someone who had something close to twenty people around him asocial, but she has yet to find any better descriptions.)

Mitsuru doesn’t question how any of this is supposed to work. Yes, they need to figure out something to do with the Evokers, yes, there are several of them whose situations will need careful thought. But she thinks she can make it all work, given enough time and maybe a little bit of help.

She doesn’t question how she’s going to fit all this together- her feelings for Minato, the probably-not-unfounded worries about Shinjiro’s mental health, whatever they end up doing with Ken.

She’s just wondering why she has to. Why SEES can safely remember, and everyone else cannot. Why her blood is still frozen, without anything to direct the cold at. Why Shinjiro is here, and Minato isn’t.

All she wants to know is why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Would you believe Mitsuru threatened me into writing this? So, yeah, I guess this is a series now. Maybe I can eventually reach a point on the timeline that's not inherently depressing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Shinjiro started filling in the blanks in Akihiko's memories, he had two conditions.
> 
> 1\. There would be no discussion of Sakaki Takaya.
> 
> 2\. There would be no discussion of Amada Ken.
> 
> And now Akihiko knows why.

_ It would be doing Akihiko a disservice to say that he never figured anything out on his own. Yes, the blocks on his memory were too strong for him to just power through, no matter what a certain part of the part of him that is Caesar may have tried, but that certainly doesn’t mean he never noticed anything off. _

_ On the contrary, he’s the only member of SEES who even tried to get past the blocks. Most of them didn’t notice. Didn’t care. While he embarked on a search for the truth, and actually found a fairly credible source for answers. _

_ When they would give him answers. In all honesty, Shinji was a lot less helpful than he could have been, and Aigis wouldn't say anything without being given clearance. But he was all right with that, really. After all, what they did tell him was, arguably, the most important part. _

_ Over the course of his life, Akihiko has lost a lot of people. He’s honestly not sure why the world has decided that everyone he loves must be killed in a violent manner in steadily increasing proximity to him, but apparently that’s just how things work. (It’s one of the less-spoken reasons why he’s never considered dating anybody. He’s an optimist, but there’s still some risks he’d really rather not take.) _

_ But Shinji came back. _

_ Shinji came back, and really, once he’d heard that, Akihiko wasn’t sure he needed to know anything more. Yes, it helps that he knows where the sparks come from, why he can never quite get all of the static frizziness out of his hair, but he could have figured all that out by himself. It’s all part of him, after all. _

_ Shinji is back. And that’s important. This is a Good Thing. _

_ And given Akihiko’s track record with Good Things, he immediately decided not to question it too much. For all he knew, that could just undo it, and that was the one thing he did not want. Besides, Shinji didn’t like him looking too closely at certain things, and somehow, he didn’t think this was the time for one of their usual arguments. (September, or what he could remember of it, was an array of a lot more fights than usual, with a small truce for his birthday. That’s not how it actually went, of course, and he realized it even then, but it still wasn’t something he wanted to go back to.) _

_ His questions could wait. Any worries he had could wait. He was sure the answers would come around immediately. _

And, come Graduation Day, they do.

* * *

  
  


Everything makes a lot more sense now. Plenty of it is in good ways- he now knows for a fact that there’s a lot more he can do with his powers than just showers of sparks- but there’s just as many things that it hurts to think about.

He’d had his suspicions, back then, about why Shinji didn’t want to talk about Sakaki Takaya. These suspicions, it turns out, were correct. He hadn’t even begun to think about why he’d avoid the subject of Amada Ken, but he’s pretty sure now that he would never have been able to come upon the correct answer either way.

He knows why those topics were never breached. And he understands it, he really does.

He also thinks they’ve been avoiding said topics for just a bit too long, and that, now that he has full context, this is the perfect time for them to finally have that discussion.

Tracking Shinji down is not difficult. Tracking Shinji down is something that Akihiko has never found particularly difficult, and it’s something that’s only ever gotten easier over the years. (Well, with one exception. But that’s not exactly relevant anymore, except for when it has to be. Like now.) Helping this is the fact that, since they got back a few hours ago, nobody has left the building, at least according to the sign-in sheet.

Akihiko’s pretty sure he can trust the sign-in sheet, even if Shinji’s been putting his name down as Minato for the past month or so. There’s nobody in SEES who dares ignore the sign-in sheet, even if there’s no one left to enforce those rules. Not after what Mitsuru did to Junpei for walking past it one time too many.

And, well, there’s only four rooms in the building his brother really spends time in. This room, the kitchen, his old room, and Minato’s. (And he only spends time in Minato’s room because that is, technically, his official room assignment.)

Of those three, Shinji turns out to be in his old room, revealed by the door being ever-so-slightly ajar. Akihiko, for a moment, wonders if it might be a better idea to come back tomorrow, or maybe go force Ken to have this conversation first.

...Well, maybe not that second one. Ken seems just as uncomfortable with the whole thing as Shinji is, if him locking himself in his room and not coming out is any indication.

But tomorrow… having some extra time to process this sounds good. He can handle these things tomorrow.

He just has to hope that Shinji can, as well.

* * *

  
  


Akihiko is no stranger to nightmares.

It would be strange if he were. When he was in middle school, he was given a proper introduction to a world where the sky turned green and monsters roamed the streets. He’d been vaguely aware of that world, if not actively participating in it, from the time he was twelve.

The less said about the events of his life before he turned ten, the better. (Most of the people he shared them with are gone, now.)

And then, of course, there’s the entire previous year. At least his other traumas had had the decency to spread themselves out, instead of all piling on together over the course of four months or so. At this point, nightmares are just things that happen.

Thinking about it, his dreams weren’t really too bad, back in February. It’s probably because he could never remember any of them, his nightmares all having just enough to do with the Dark Hour to keep them under lock and key.

He has to remember them now, if only right when he wakes up. Forgetting was frustrating, but at least it meant they couldn’t leave any echoes.

There’s echoes now. Gunshots, and collapsing buildings, and the literal end of the world. Which didn’t really happen in the end, but had him as someone who both helped prevent it and was part of the cause. He hopes none of the others have to deal with dreams like this, but he’s sure that at least some of them do. (None of them made it through the decade of the Dark Hour unscathed. They just prefer to focus on other scars.)

Only one of those dreams was something Akihiko could fight. He wouldn’t even say he did all that good a job of it. Minato’s the one who managed to do something about it, and then he vanished without a trace before anyone could ask how he did it.

Still. He’s awake. He can fight back when he’s awake.

...Or, at least, he can bring out his punching bag and pretend nothing else in the world exists. It’s been a perfectly usable coping mechanism for the past eight years or so, why should this be any different?

Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.

* * *

  
  


It’s about five minutes later that Shinji knocks on his door, and it’s hard to tell if he’s disgruntled or just half-asleep. (One would think it would be easier. After all, Minato went through life more or less half-asleep. But Shinji has different expressions, a number of which Akihiko has committed to memory, and ‘half-asleep’ is not one of the ones he’s picked up. Also, disgruntled is Shinji’s natural state of being, it seems like. Or maybe that’s just him.)

“Can’t you keep it down?” He complains, not for the first time. This was… not an incredibly rare occurrence, back in their first year.

However, Akihiko is also aware that his control has improved since then, and he’s never been bad enough to wake someone else up before. Only enough to stop someone from getting to sleep.

Given that it’s past midnight…. Well, considering their… former hobby, that doesn’t particularly mean anything, but he can’t say for sure that it’s nothing, either.

“Is it that bad?” Maybe he’s been more stressed than he thought.

“I could hear you from the hallway,” He says, but doesn’t offer any explanation for why he’d be in the hallway to begin with. “You feeling okay?”

Akihiko thinks Shinji is the last person who should be asking him that question. Shinji is the last person who should be asking anyone that question, because if the tables were turned, he would be lying through his teeth. (Shinjiro, if he were told this, would shrug and admit that he has a point, but keep asking him anyway.)

“Relative to what?” He asks, trying to remind himself that yelling won’t actually solve anything. It certainly can’t change the past. “I’m really not sure what your definition of okay is.” He doesn’t mean for it to come out as an accusation. It just happens.

“...Do you really think this is the time for that?”

“Do you think there’s ever going to be a good time?” He realizes, of course, that the answer is no. If there is such a thing as a good time to talk about this sort of topic, there’s no way of knowing what it is, because odds are this sort of conversation has never needed to happen with anyone else. (And if it has, nobody would be willing to publicize it. It would sound crazy if someone were to say these things to those who don’t already know.)

Shinji actually takes a moment to consider it. Or, at least, to look like he’s considering it. Akihiko doesn’t think he can fake this sort of thing, but the past day has done a lot to show him just how much he might not know. “...I mean, there could be daylight.”

This is not particularly reassuring. Which is arguably more worrying, because Shinji is actually pretty good at being reassuring, most of the time.

But then, if there’s anything that was going to be an exception… This would be it.

“You had plenty of chances for that before.” Akihiko thinks he needs to learn how to keep his mouth shut. Preferably before this becomes a regular thing. “You just never wanted to talk about it.”

“Well, what was I supposed to tell you? None of that was stuff you needed to know. Even if you did, how would I have said it? ‘Hey, do you want to hear about that time I killed someone!?’ I don’t think so!”

Honestly, that’s probably the part of this that Akihiko cares about the least. The hyperventilating is more concerning to him, and this is after he’s chosen to interpret it as a good thing, because it means his brother’s still breathing. (Honestly, he should probably go see someone about those abandonment issues, but even when the people involved in this whole mess hadn’t been lobotomized, the Kirijo Group had never had therapists on the payroll. This probably explains a lot more than it should.)

“I… don’t think that bit would have come up, really.” He needs to calm down. They both do. There is a time and a place for this sort of thing, and Shinji’s right in that it’s not just past midnight after everything settled down.

Sadly, they’ve already gotten the snowball rolling. “And you think the rest of it’s any better?”

“...It could have helped.” At the very least, he can say with absolute certainty that the last remnant of the nightmare is gone from his mind. If only that meant things would actually get better. “Do you have any idea how it feels, to watch someone die and not even be able to remember it?” All he’d known for sure was that there hadn’t been anything he could do about it. 

(Not yet, at least. Losing Shinji allowed him to reach past a wall he hadn’t even known was there, and hidden behind that wall was Diarahan. He’s not sure whether it would have actually worked, but he can’t say the thought never occurred to him.)

It takes a full minute for Shinji to respond. “Least you had the chance not to remember.” And then he leaves, having apparently decided that he’s done with this conversation.

Neither of them are really okay with this.

* * *

  
  


The fact is, even with these memories, Akihiko’s still not sure how it got to be this way. When his arguments with Shinji started being over serious things instead of just the dumb things that kids are meant to fight about.

At the very least, he knows when the serious fights started taking over. He’d met Mitsuru, life-threatening situations became an everyday thing… He’d thought that was just a sign of how high the stakes were.

And maybe it was. But things are peaceful, now. Odds are they’ll never have to see another Shadow again. But things haven’t gone back to the way they used to be, even the things that conceivably could.

How did this happen? How had he not noticed all of these hurts building up, until there was barely any of their former happiness left? What would it take to make things go back to… not necessarily the way things were, but something that doesn’t hurt so much?

What does he have to do, so that the definition of okay is something that can go unquestioned?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, once you start thinking about it... Aki's life kind of sucks, doesn't it?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken has to face something he was trying to avoid.

_ Ken not remembering the Dark Hour is due to a number of reasons. _

_ The first of these is a lack of opportunity. He did not often speak to Minato, in either the rewritten reality or the actual one, and as such wouldn’t have been able to identify a change in behavior even if they had spoken at all in February. (Shinjiro had been avoiding him at the time, for reasons less to do with any hard feelings remaining between the two of them and more his own nonexistent self-esteem.) The others mostly just ignored him, and so he went on with the human aspect completely unable to trigger anything. _

_ The second is a lack of tools. There was nothing he encountered over that time which could have triggered anything, Nothing but a trio of spears, which were left under his bed and not uncovered, and an Evoker, which he had been pretty sure was just a toy of some kind, even if he had no idea why he’d have one like that after October. So he didn’t think much of those, either. _

_ But neither of those are the real reason he didn’t remember anything. In fact, the true reason Ken remained ignorant can be attributed mainly to one thing. _

_ Ken did not remember because, while he recognized there were a few particularly patchy spots in his memory, Ken did not want to know what went there. Even without context, he realized how horrifying those memories would be, and made the very responsible decision to Not Touch Them until he was sure he could handle it. (If it had been left up to him, he would probably have started looking into things when he was sixteen or so. That seems like a reasonable age to start processing various emotional traumas. Says the boy who was once surrounded by sixteen-year-olds who were failing miserably at coping with various emotional traumas.) _

_ If something came up before then, that was fine. He wasn’t going to try and stop it, maybe it could be important. But he wasn’t about to go seeking out strange things on his own. _

_ Not when that’s how Shinjiro died. _

_ At least, he thought that was how it went. He was, again, aware that maybe he couldn’t fully trust his own recollections of the matter. But of all the things that were a bit off, this was the one he wanted to know about the least. (The part of him that is Kala-Nemi has never liked recalling how he came into his full power.) _

_ So he never poked, never pried. He left well enough alone, and the memories, in turn, did the same for him. _

At least, until they don’t.

* * *

  
  


Honestly, things make so much more sense now, that for a moment Ken wonders just what it is about the prospect of remembering that his five-minutes-past self was so afraid of. Just for a moment. As much sense as these new-old pieces of information makes, the fact remains that they’re not very pretty.

He is willing, of course, to just push this aside and come back to it later, but then Fuuka speaks up and suddenly everything is put on a time limit.

Or, well, something close to one. The fact is, he’s not sure he can talk to Shinjiro just yet, but he also knows that it’d be a bad idea to put it off for too long. And he’s not sure how long he has.

In order to not somehow make the situation worse, Ken spends the rest of the day ignoring people. He doesn’t talk to anyone, they don’t talk to him, and everyone is okay with that. (At least, he assumes they’re okay with that. He didn’t exactly get the chance to ask.)

When he returns to his room, everything is where he left it this morning. His Evoker sits on the desk, thought more innocuous than it actually is, and he takes a moment to wonder if it still works.

He doesn’t test it. Light, lightning, and pure destructive force really don’t have any purpose here.

They don’t have a purpose anywhere, really. Not after the environment that brought them out has disappeared. Ken’s sure he can find a use for the healing, but it’d be a very different world indeed if there were never any use for healing magic. If he decides to look. He’s not sure he’ll look yet.

There are still spears under his bed. He’s pretty sure he’ll never have a use for them again, at least not in the way they were meant for. And they’re meant for combat, fights of the sort only seen in legends. There’s no way he won’t get odd looks if he goes to a spear-handling lesson and brings Gae Bolg, Gungnir, or Pinaka with him. (Actually, is it even legal for him to own these? Questions for later.)

Just more things that no longer really have a purpose. (Ken can sort of understand the feeling. As far as he’s aware, he’s already completed his life’s purpose, and he’s eleven. There’s really not a lot of places to go from here.)

He replaces the weapons under the bed. He doesn’t need them right now, maybe not ever, and there’s no reason to bring them out when they’re not needed.

Really, for his most recent dilemma, he thinks having a weapon at hand would be the worst mistake he could make. And he can imagine a lot of possible mistakes.

How is he supposed to talk to someone who died trying to protect him, after a month’s worth of very one-sided enmity? Something tells him even Mitsuru wouldn’t know the proper etiquette for that. (While he is correct about the information’s extreme rarity, nobody ever told him that, unless it’s for official business, Mitsuru has the social skills of a half-melted snowman. So maybe she isn’t the best choice for a benchmark.)

He’ll have to take some time to think about it.

* * *

  
  


There are a lot of things about Ken’s life that, while he chose not to question them, would probably have needed to be dealt with long before the time of his choosing, if he’d had the option to put off remembering for a bit.

Things such as his living situation. Nobody’s brought up the idea of anything changing so far, but it’s only been a day, and he knows Akihiko and Mitsuru will be leaving for university eventually, even if they’ve yet to say anything about it. He can’t take the idea of things staying the same for granted, considering that.

Mitsuru promises him she’ll look into it, when he asks. Given how busy she is, he doesn’t know if she’ll actually have the time. (Mitsuru, meanwhile, thinks this could actually be a relaxing break from the case of the Kirijo Group’s collective brain damage. It’s just that, for obvious reasons, that’s not something she wants to go around saying out loud.) So this isn’t as relieving as it could be.

Still, it’s something. And that’s good, because at the moment Ken has very little control over his own life. Something he doesn’t even mind, because the last time he tried to make his own decisions ended tragically, and that’s the next thing he needs to try and fix.

If he can. Shinjiro hasn’t so much as attempted to go and speak with him, and while that isn’t necessarily saying much- Ken can count their proper conversations prior to his death on one hand- he has no idea how he could possibly go and start that talk himself.

(This is not something that is unique to him. There are very few people that Shinjiro ever bothers approaching for a conversation. He knows he shouldn’t take it personally. It’s just… really, really difficult.)

Without school, he doesn’t see much reason to leave the building. Shinjiro doesn’t leave, either. Nobody really does, with the exception of Junpei, who actually does have a life outside of SEES and school. Even if SEES was how he was introduced to her.

It’s like they’re all just… waiting for something to happen. Something big. And the big, important event that will probably define their lives- the Fall- has already happened.

It’s only been a day, and he has no idea what he’s supposed to do from here, but Ken is sick and tired of sitting around and not being able to do anything.

Of course, it helps a lot that the thing he wants to do can be done without leaving the building.

* * *

  
  


Akihiko and Shinjiro aren’t talking to each other at the moment. Ken doesn’t think much of it, partly because he still has to remind himself that it’s not Minato sitting there, but also because he’s used to the two of them being annoyed with each other.

It’s probably nothing to worry about. They always make up eventually. (They don’t necessarily ever acknowledge the previous argument, but they’re not about to let little things like coping methods of questionable health and function get in the way of them getting along.)

And Shinjiro will probably still talk to Mitsuru, if he has some sort of reason to do so. There’s really nothing to worry about. However, he doesn’t seem interested in talking to her right now.

That leaves him alone. This is Ken’s chance.

It’s utterly terrifying.

“Did you want something, kid?” Shinjiro sounds utterly detached when Ken approaches him, his face unreadable. (At least to Ken. Akihiko would be able to translate it as ‘ Neither of us are any good at talking, but apparently that’s something we need to do right now,’ perhaps modified a bit for Ken actually possessing some small amount of social skills. But nobody’s asking him.)

Ken freezes. He doesn’t mean to- even if he hasn’t written out a whole script in his head, he still had some idea of what he meant to say, and now he’s lost it- it’s just that, even in Minato’s voice, Shinjiro’s tone and manner of speech are entirely recognizable, now that he knows to look for them. (And now that Shinjiro is no longer trying to mask it.)

It’s a bit jarring, even when it’s supposed to be more-or-less anticipated. “Well, I, um, just-” He stumbles over his words for another minute or so, still with no idea what he’s supposed to do.

Shinjiro sighs. “Okay, I think I can tell where this is going.” A hand slips into his pocket. “Kid, it’s fine. You don’t have to say anything.”

What is he talking about? Of course he does! “But I… you…” He struggles to pull the words together. Sadly, he can’t think of any way to just hammer his thoughts back into place, but he’s sure he can improvise. “You died.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it.

“Yes, I thought that was established.” Ken had not realized Minato’s voice was capable of being so dry, but apparently it is. Honestly, that probably has a lot to do with the person currently using it. “And everyone does, eventually. It’s just that most people don’t get to come back.”

He supposes that’s one way of looking at it. Even if it still doesn’t address… anything, really. And there’s a lot that needs to be addressed. “...I’m sorry.” He glances down at the floor, not sure if this is enough, but unable to do anything else, even facing the person he’s talking to.

“Nothing to be sorry for. Not on your end, at least.” Ken is still steadfastly refusing to look up. However, that reason now has notably less to do with guilt than it did fifteen seconds ago. (The guilt’s still there, though. There are many reasons that the Kirijo Group should have had therapists on the payroll, and this is only one of them.)

Now, it has more to do with the fact that seeing someone in this sort of pain hurts, especially when he has no idea how to help. He’s one of the best healers in a group full of them, he should be able to fix things. But he doesn’t know how.

“You don’t... have to apologize for anything, either.” Is this going to help? He’s not sure it’ll help. It’s just that he has no idea what else he can possibly say. “Not if I don’t. At least- at least you weren’t trying to hurt anyone.” Unlike him. Even when it comes from himself, he bristles a little at the reminder.

But it’s something he needs to say, because if he'd been just a bit better, things wouldn’t be like this. Shinjiro wouldn’t have died. (At least, not in that fashion. Nobody’s about to claim that there was never any risk, least of all Shinjiro.) Or, if he did, at least it wouldn’t have been his fault.

And that’s the problem. He’s sure that what happened is his fault, that Shinjiro’s death is because of him. However temporary that death may have been, because Minato was kind enough to step in.

Minato.

It’s his fault Minato’s gone, isn’t it? Or, at least, it’s his fault nobody got the chance to say goodbye. And most people don’t even notice that he left, to feel sad about it.

He’s only realizing it now, and it’s a thought he can’t get out of his head. It’s something that clings to him, even as he and Shinjiro try to talk, even when they finally come to an agreement to start over.

Everything’s strange right now, to the point where someone is going around with the wrong face, due to two years worth of bad decisions.

So why shouldn’t Ken blame himself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear there's going to be chapters that aren't depressing! Just... if anyone needs me, I'll be trying to hug SEES through my game systems. Ken in particular. Poor kid needs it right now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuuka handles things about as well as can be expected, under the circumstances.

_ Fuuka went through February confused. _

_ This was due to a number of reasons, the least of which being that she couldn’t even remember why she lived in the dorms to begin with. (Not that she had a problem with her living arrangements. It was nice having friends she could reach whenever she wanted.) _

_ It had been a sudden thing, too, her waking up and realizing she had no idea how she’d gotten there. She knew it had something to do with Natsuki, but nothing else. _

_ She’d tried texting Natsuki to ask, but her friend had been just as clueless as she was. So she shrugged it off and decided to move on with her life. _

_ Still, even beyond that, things didn’t feel right. She wouldn’t have been able to describe it if she tried, but Fuuka could tell there was something off. She just didn’t know what. (The part of her that is Juno might have helped, had she been a bit more vocal, but she’d never particularly wanted to stand out. All she’d ever wanted to do was help.) _

_ She couldn’t let herself think about it too much, of course. She had things to deal with, such as the end of the year. And there wasn’t much, in particular, that really stood out as wrong. _

_ In fact, it was just one thing. Or one person, rather. The day Fuuka became aware that something odd was going on with the world, an odd change overtook Minato. _

_ It started with a paperclip. A small thing that nobody would notice, unless they knew him well, but Minato had always loved being able to hide his face away from the world. Said it was comforting. She knew the feeling. _

_ As far as breaking up went, it could have been worse. It hurt, a lot, and it made her wonder what she’d done wrong, but… she also couldn’t really remember why they were together in the first place. She’d known it was important to her, somehow, but… it had just slipped away, and now there wasn’t much reason left to look deeper into it. (At least, that was what she’d tell people. She wasn’t sure what they’d think of her if she admitted that she’d cried afterwards.) _

_ Even if Minato hadn’t felt like Minato at the time. Even if he hadn’t felt like him for a while before. _

_ Even if he never started feeling like him again. Fuuka didn’t have any idea where the feelings were even coming from, so why listen to them? Why pay closer attention to someone that had just hurt her? _

_ And besides, maybe he did feel like himself. Maybe this was just the first time she’d bothered to look closely enough to notice… whatever it was she was feeling. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, after all. Just something that could easily be overlooked, if it was anything at all. _

The day she finally looks closer, is the day that everything changes.

* * *

  
  


If there’s one question Fuuka has about this whole thing, now that her memories have slotted back into place, it’s how she could have ever failed to recognize Shinjiro.

It’s true that she only got to know him for about a month. But that doesn’t seem quite right, because she’s memorized the feeling of those she spent far less time around, and is sure she could recognize them if prompted. (If a bit less sure than she was at the end of January. If she’s managed to miss something like this, what else could have slipped her by?)

After a few more minutes, in which she reacquaints herself with ways to identify Shinjiro’s spirit, she manages to come up with a few theories.

The first idea she has is that she hadn’t considered the idea of Minato being gone at all, and Shinjiro seemed familiar enough that she was able to believe she was just imagining things, thus keeping her from looking closely enough to realize the actual source of the familiarity. It sort of makes sense, though it helps that general-purpose amnesia was enough to stop her from even being able to look. Not so long as nothing seemed obviously wrong.

Another theory is that she’s gotten too used to the constant variations that come with having to monitor the status of a Wild Card. Compared to everyone else, Minato didn’t have a baseline. Just an average that changed as often as everything else about him. So there wasn’t much reason to look closely enough to put a name to the differences.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that she has failed in her duties. (Or what remains of them. What use would there be for Juno’s powers in this new world? Only time will tell.)

She doesn’t go back to the dorms straight away. Yukari doesn’t, either, the two of them having made plans beforehand to stop by Chagall to celebrate making it through the year. Just because everything’s turned upside down is no reason to forget the good parts.

...At least, that’s Fuuka’s reason. Yukari, she suspects, may have other motives. Mainly involving avoiding people.

“I guess we know why Akihiko-senpai’s been so happy recently.” Fuuka thinks it’s important to keep this in mind- that just because things aren’t perfect, doesn’t mean everyone else has to be miserable. It’s good to see the bright side.

“Someone has to be.” Yukari’s drink is mostly untouched. Fuuka hasn’t exactly been guzzling down her cocoa, either, but at least she’s made noticeable progress in consuming it. “Just… Why would Minato do that? Why would he leave?”

Fuuka doesn’t have an answer.

* * *

  
  


Maybe things will start getting better if she just doesn’t think about them.

Fuuka is aware that this isn’t entirely logical. Among other things, she should probably try and remember the reason she gave her parents for moving and see if it still applies.

...Actually, she needs to think back on everything she’s told her parents since summer, just to make sure she doesn’t say anything that would set off any massive warning signals. After a while, she was more stressed out about keeping the world from ending than keeping her story straight. And while the general amnesic state of the world might help with that, she’d rather not rely on anything that blocked even her awareness of her own powers.

Still, she’s got time. She doesn’t need to have anything settled until someone asks her about it, and she doesn’t think she has to worry too much about being asked. That would require people to have suspicions. (She never thought she’d be glad to be so overlookable.)

Right now, the curse of amnesia means that everyone is busy trying to adjust to both the fact that the Dark Hour is gone, and that it ever happened to begin with. It’s more debilitating for some of them than others- Fuuka doesn’t think she’s ever seen Ken seem so lost. Not even in October.

He’s not the only one. It might not have been a full year, but Fuuka was very attuned to the Dark Hour while she was a part of it. And now it’s gone, and… She needs to find something else to do with her time.

Maybe it’s time she started trying to learn to cook again.

* * *

  
  


The last time Fuuka tried cooking was in the middle of December. She’d wanted to try making Christmas cookies, though most of her results turned out to be charcoal.

She hasn’t made the attempt since, mainly because there’s only so many accidental activations of the smoke detector that a person can handle. She likes having working ears, thank you very much, and also Junpei was the only person willing to help her out anymore.

In fact, she has everyone’s rejections memorized. Yukari doesn’t have the time. Mitsuru and Aigis are, if anything, even more useless in the kitchen than she is. Ken has problems seeing over the top of the counter, let alone actually making anything. Minato-

Minato had always avoided letting the conversation topic slip back around to food. He’d tried one lunch she’d made, gagged, and more or less swore off eating her cooking forever.

But Minato’s not here right now. Might not be ever again, and that’s one of those things she needs to get used to now. It’s not Minato lounging around with no visible direction in life, it’s Shinjiro. (And she supposes that, out of all of them, he’s got the most reason for aimlessness.)

Fuuka has never experienced that kind of rejection from Shinjiro. She’s also never asked him for assistance, but that’s not the point.

The point is that she can ask. And, whatever the answer is, it’s better than just going through life and pretending that he’s not there. She’d spent February steadfastly ignoring the person who appeared to be Minato, and today, she decides, is the day that changes.

...Well. Once he’s done talking to Ken, anyway. She’s got a pretty good idea what that’s about, and she wouldn’t want to intrude.

* * *

  
  


Fuuka has to admit, she hadn’t really expected Shinjiro to actually agree to help her. “It shouldn’t be a problem,” He says, and she can’t tell whether or not her worldview has been shaken by this. It’s been messed with so much already, how would she ever tell?

“Really?” She tries not to brighten up too much. Fails. (At least something’s going right today.)

“Shouldn’t be too bad, as long as you start with something simple.” He sounds a lot more sure of it than she feels. Admittedly, this isn’t saying much. Fuuka’s not exactly the picture of confidence. “What were you thinking of making.”

This is probably not the time to admit that she hasn’t actually thought that far ahead. Not that she has any idea what else she can say. “I’m… not sure. It just… feels like I should learn to make something.” It’s not like the feelings that Juno gives her, but she thinks there’s still merit in listening to them. Besides, cooking’s a useful skill to have.

It’s obvious that this isn’t what Shinjiro was hoping to hear. “...Fried rice it is. Pretty sure you can’t mess that up.”

Fuuka is pretty sure that, yes, she can, in fact, mess up fried rice. Not that she wants to, but it isn’t like anything she’s made has ever come out more than barely edible. Why should this be any different? (Sometimes the help just makes it worse. Even though she can’t remember it, her dreams still feature that poor Shadow’s screaming. She doesn’t like thinking about it.)

“That sounds nice,” She agrees, pushing her doubts onto a pile that is eternally growing in size. “What do we do first?”

“Well, I’ve got recipe cards somewhere we can use. So you look for those, and I’ll see if there’s actually any food in this building, or if we need to go shopping.”

* * *

  
  


There is not, in fact, any food in the building. Barely anyone in SEES cooks, and most of them are outright useless when it comes to anything other than the most basic instant noodles. They don’t need groceries.

Except, of course, for when they do. And they do, in fact, have a budget for food, since utter lack of oversight or not, nobody’s willing to let an entire building’s worth of students starve.

This does not mean Fuuka has any idea what to do with the money. She’s never been grocery shopping on her own before, at least not without a proper list, and there’s just so many options, she doesn’t know where to start.

Shinjiro is unimpressed by this. This isn’t anything new. Shinjiro is never impressed by everyone’s ability to take care of themselves, particularly when it is best described as ‘complete lack of.’ (Even that might be a bit generous sometimes. Not that he has any room to talk.)

“If you were all left alone, you’d either burn the place down or starve,” He comments, and Fuuka can’t think of any real way to dispute that. “Not sure which.”

Really, she’d be offended if she didn’t know it’s entirely true. “I… think it depends on who’s trying to cook,” She ventures, putting maybe a bit more thought into it than the question deserves. “And Mitsuru-senpai would probably just go to a restaurant…” (It might not be entirely in the spirit of the discussion, but that’s no reason to pretend that Mitsuru isn’t the most practical person either of them know, at least when it comes to things that don’t involve people.)

“She would, wouldn’t she?” Shinjiro starts looking through the shelves at things that definitely don’t go on fried rice. “If any of us are gonna make it past this, it’ll be her.”

The fact that he doesn’t seem to have that much faith in his own ability to get past this is worrying. But it’s not like it’s the first time he’s said something worrying. (To this day, Fuuka still wonders how she hadn’t seen October coming.)

“Well, we’ve got plenty of time to work things out, don’t we?” She points out, not feeling like telling him that the reason they’re doing this is because she doesn’t want to stress out about this sort of thing.

“...Yeah. World’s probably not going to end while we’re still figuring this out, at least.”

And there’s a lot for them to figure out. What excuses have been made to everyone, what they’re supposed to do with the relics of an era that has recently been forgotten… How are they going to do all of this?

And, more importantly, where are they supposed to start?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of the humans, Fuuka and Mitsuru probably have things the most together. Also maybe Junpei, I'm not really sure.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Junpei manages to keep his own life from spiraling out of control. If only he could do something about everyone else...

_ Junpei knew something was wrong from the beginning. _

_ He couldn’t give it a name. Even when he was aware of the powers available to him, he’d never quite felt it before. (He’s never claimed to be qualified as a Navigator, powers that once belonged to Medea or not. Even if he did, Shinjiro died long before he had to lay claim to them.) _

_ The oddities were everywhere, always just on the edge of his senses. A thought that could never get anywhere, words that didn’t sit right. _

_ And people. Two, three of them in particular, who were all obviously strange and, to some degree or another, a part of Junpei’s life, major or not. _

_ The major one, of course, was Chidorita. He never gave much thought to how he met her, or how oddly close they were to each other despite only meeting a few months ago. None of that mattered to him except that he loved her. (It’s been argued that the term ‘soulmate’ is not meant to be taken literally. Trismegistus says otherwise.) _

_ The other obvious oddities were a bit closer to home- in fact, they shared one. _

_ There was, of course, Aigis. The girl who transferred in from somewhere in Europe- he never got the country. (Nobody ever bothered to properly fabricate it.) She’d always been weird. _

_ He didn’t remember where he’d met her, of course, though he did recall trying to ask her out and getting shot down in as brutal a fashion as possible. _

_ However, Aigis’ eccentricities were normal. Had been normal for as long as Junpei had known her, to the point that they didn’t really register anymore. It was easy to ignore, particularly when she didn’t really talk to anyone. _

_ Well, except for one person. _

_ The third oddity that Junpei took note of involved one Arisato Minato. More specifically, how he just didn't seem like himself anymore. (Some days, he barely even seemed alive.) _

_ Minato did everything he could to keep himself hidden from the world, even as he surrounded himself with people. And then he was distancing himself from everyone, his right eye now visible with the use of a paperclip to tame his long hair. _

_ He didn’t even feel like himself. And Junpei wondered, sometimes, if he should have asked about that, if he would have been satisfied with whatever answers he got. _

_ If he’d asked, he would have received an honest answer. He was just never brave enough to ask. With all the physical evidence of weirdness buried in the mess that is his room, there wasn’t anything really driving him to seek the answers. _

Eventually, he gets them anyway.

* * *

  
  


He doesn’t fully believe that today is real until he starts rummaging through the contents of his room. The place is a mess, there’s just not enough room for all of his things, and maybe that’s how everything avoided his notice. (He’s never cared much, as long as he has space to study.)

He nearly cuts himself searching for his sword, and finding his Evoker takes another half an hour. If he hadn’t remembered, he could easily see lots of awkward questions in his future.

Which is funny, because given everything, Junpei’s not sure he should really have a future. The world could have ended a long time ago, but it didn’t, and now he’s here trying to work out what he should do with the remnants of a time now gone.

The only proof remaining that such a time had ever come to be.

He’s not certain he has use, anymore, for a sword and an Evoker. Fire magic is handy in a fight, but can be very dangerous if left unchecked. (Shinjiro’s fears of Junpei burning down the city were not entirely unfounded.)

Still, this brings another important fact to mind. “I guess I should probably clean this up.” He could have killed himself, this past month, just by tripping at the wrong moment, and besides the fact that it would hurt, he really doesn’t want to know what people would say about him if he died in such a ridiculous fashion. Their words aren’t always flattering to begin with.

Nearby, a door shuts more loudly than it strictly has to. Judging from the direction, that’d be Ken.

This isn’t surprising. Ken’s just a kid, even if he’s arguably the most mature person in the building. Of course he’d have just as much trouble as everyone else, even if Shinjiro wasn’t involved. And Shinjiro is very definitely involved in this.

Junpei wonders if it’s normal for Persona Users to have to deal with people they know coming back from the dead. Twice isn’t enough to make a real pattern, but that’s twice more than most people ever get. If they’d known this was a possibility… he’s not sure if it would have made things better or worse.

...Probably worse. He knows he wouldn’t have wanted to just sit around hoping for the impossible. And it’s impossible, everything that’s been happening in his life this past year.

But it’s still a marked improvement from where he was before. So there’s that.

* * *

  
  


Despite everyone being aware of Shinjiro’s presence, there’s not a lot of immediate changes.

At least, not that Junpei can see. Some of the others might have done something to welcome him back, he’s not sure if he would have noticed Aigis doing something like that in February, but there’s barely any visible reaction to everything that’s changed.

If anything, things have regressed from how they were in February, especially one one particular matter.

Akihiko and Minato never had a conversation that wasn’t related to the Dark Hour. It was always battle strategies, or training schedules, or the allocation of new equipment. It was normal.

Minato’s not here anymore. Shinjiro has taken his place, and seems so disaffected by the whole thing that he can put on a pretty good act, so long as no one looks too closely.

But even when he was pretending, even when he wasn’t letting people know he was there, Shinjiro always had time for Akihiko. For the past couple weeks, it had become normal to see the two of them together, and Junpei had been glad that they seemed to be friends. He likes it when all of his friends are getting along. Even if he and Shinjiro have also barely spoken.

But now that distance has returned, and Junpei would very much like to know why.

When he brings it up, Shinjiro gets oddly defensive. “What’s it matter?”

Junpei shrugs, because he’s not really sure he could even put it into words if he tried. (He’s never been all that great with words to begin with, none of SEES are, but this is the sort of thing that, unless he wants to go into his own history, he is distinctly unqualified for.)

“Just… doesn’t feel right to have you fighting, right after everyone learns you’re here. I thought you’d be happier to get to talk to him like…” Well, like himself, except that while Shinjiro’s a good enough actor, Akihiko’s probably the person he’s been the most honest with. So maybe that’s not the best choice of words to use.

“Yeah, well…” There’s a moment of thought, more clear than anything else, and it doesn’t take very long for Junpei to realize that it’s actually pretty weird to see emotions reflected on Minato’s face. “...Aki worries too much.”

Junpei can’t really relate. There’s a lot he’d be willing to give for the sake of having a family member, official or otherwise, who actually gave a shit about him. “What do you mean?”

“He keeps bugging me about things I can’t change.” There isn’t really any elaboration needed on that. “And it’s all in the past now, so what’s it matter, right?” He’s fiddling with an object in his hands now, a pocket watch. It’s not something Junpei’s ever seen Minato with before, as much as that means anything when nobody knows how he was spending most of his time.

Honestly, at this point, he thinks he’s more likely to take Akihiko’s side, and he hasn’t even heard Akihiko’s side of the story yet. (He doesn’t think there can be too much love of any kind.)

He knows that, if Chidori remembered, he’d worry about her. He does either way, but it’s something that isn’t fully real to her, so he can write it off as being just another thing he’s being stupid about, and he’s got a lot of those.

“Clearly matters to him, though.” And when he puts everything into perspective, it’s very, very hard to blame him. “It’s not that hard to see why, either. You did sort of…” He trails off there, because there really is no good way to put that sort of thing into words.

For a moment, everything is quiet. “...Doesn’t mean I want to talk about it.” And that’s fair, too.

Junpei just shrugs, and makes a mental note not to turn himself into a personal messenger boy for those two. Not that he doesn’t think he can convince them to pay him for it. It’s just not something he has any real interest in. (Besides, odds are nothing will change if they don’t actually talk to each other at some point.)

They’ll figure it out eventually.

* * *

  
  


The one part of Junpei’s life that currently has no reason that it may change is his relationship with Chidori. Given how he met her, this is probably a bad sign.

The two of them have a few more commonalities than they did a week ago. They’ve both been cut loose from something they were previously sure of- her by amnesia, him by… also amnesia, technically. (Does it count if the thing that set him off was the recovery? He doesn’t know if it does or not, but there’s also no one he can ask.)

Either way, dealing with people who are unaware is easier than talking with people who actually know what’s going on. Which is all sorts of messed up, but he’s not going to dwell on that right now.

“It feels sort of weird for the year to be over,” Is the best way he can explain it to other people. Nothing about monsters, or extra hours, or the fact that, technically, the world should have ended over a month ago. “Feels like it lasted forever, sometimes.”

Three hundred extra hours, at the very minimum. He’s never bothered to actually calculate this sort of stuff. But that seems about right.

“A year is a very long time,” Chidori points out, and she’s right, really, particularly when Junpei’s brain has managed to calibrate itself to worrying about whether or not he’ll survive the next month, let alone another year. He honestly didn’t think he’d make it this far.

He’s not sure what to do now that he’s gotten here.

So he just shrugs, and tries to think of something else he can say. “Everyone else isn’t doing all that great, either,” He admits, not sure how far he’s willing to go with this, but not having reached his limit just yet. “Everything that’s been happening… sort of caught up with all of us at once.”

“What sort of things?”

“Be easier to list the sort of stuff that didn’t happen.” He doesn’t think he’s exaggerating. He’ll never be able to tell anyone not already in the know about this year, because they’d never believe him. It’s just too eventful to be true. “Exams, clubs, a death in the dorm…” And, okay, maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the last part, but it’s out now, and there’s no taking it back. “It’s been pretty rough.” And that's only the stuff he’s sure he can talk about without, according to Mitsuru, apparently risking giving his girlfriend severe brain damage.

He’s really, really not sure where she got that kind of information from, but he does know that he’s not entirely willing to take a risk with that, so he’ll keep everything quiet.

“I… suppose so.” Chidori appears concerned. It’s easy to see why. “Should I ask about…?”

“Probably not.” He doesn’t even remember what the official explanation for that was, and it’d only cause problems if he got it wrong. “At least next year will probably be better than this one. We can’t be that unlucky.”

He’s aware, of course, that he probably just jinxed himself. Tempting fate has never ended well for him before, and there’s really no reason that should change now.

He just hopes it doesn’t, because everyone else has enough problems as it is, and while he’s mostly removed from a good portion of it, that doesn’t mean he’s been untouched. It doesn’t mean he’s not wondering how or why this could have happened to them.

However, there is, at least to him, a more important question. He may have his own issues with this, but everyone else, from what he can see, is even worse off.

He wonders if there’s anything he can do to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Junpei comes off as a lot better-adjusted than I'd expected. I guess there had to be someone who was still mostly okay with things.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yukari is confused.

_ Yukari never noticed anything. In fact, she never even got the chance to. _

_ From what she could remember, she hadn’t been particularly close to anyone inside the dorm, with the exceptions of Minato, and sometimes, if he was being less obnoxious than usual, Junpei. (And her relationship with Junpei was mostly a series of arguments.) _

_ That wasn’t a lot of people she could talk to. Even less, when Minato broke up with her and she decided the best course of action was to stop speaking with him. (Maybe not the most mature decision she could have made, but she was a teenager who had just had her heart broken.) Not talking to him meant that she wasn’t in a position to notice any sort of odd behavior. _

_ She couldn’t remember ever really speaking to Aigis, before. Or Akihiko. Even her hard-won friendship with Mitsuru had been completely scrubbed from her brain. _

_ And she didn’t even realize anything was wrong. _

_ She couldn’t, really. She didn’t have any sort of Navigator abilities, latent or otherwise, or bonds strong enough that they would start tugging on her soul, or events so deeply personally scarring they couldn’t be removed. It was just her. Takeba Yukari. _

_ Without those things, she was clueless. Without those things, she couldn’t consider any possibilities other than the one that was immediately presented- that she was a normal girl whose biggest, most important question was whether her mother’s newest boyfriend was worth meeting or not. (And they mostly leaned towards not.) _

_ She never thought much of Aigis’ feats of strength. Those were just her being Aigis. _

_ She never paid any attention to ‘Minato’s’ changes. She was avoiding him. _

_ There wasn’t even any physical evidence towards something being off. Her Evoker had fallen under her bed to lay untouched, and she was in the archery club. It wasn’t unusual at all that she’d have a few bows around. _

_ With how cut off she was, it is any surprise that she never suspected a thing? _

Even realizing that, she still thinks she’s an idiot.

* * *

  
  


When Graduation Day comes, the sheer deluge of information that crashes down on Yukari’s brain is overwhelming. There’s just too much of it, so many memories locked away, without anything to give her a hint to the fact they were there.

The first, most important thing she remembers is that she has to get to the roof. Everything else just sort of fills itself in from there. Dark Hour, Shadows, Personas.

By the time she gets up there again, she is once again aware of the part of her that is Isis, swirling around her as a fresh spring breeze, and fading away again the second she stops moving. Her other self is the only part of this that doesn’t take her by surprise.

But that doesn’t fix everything. It barely fixes anything, just one thing she can hold onto in this sea of confusion. She knows who she is, and the sort of things she could do, if she just had a way of accessing her inner power. Her wind doesn’t change anything, when she has no way of using it.

She is still surrounded by people that she both barely knows, and has spent months fighting beside. It’ll take time for her to sort it all out, time she’s not sure she has.

Even if she does manage to understand anything, it won’t be all the answers she needs. Shinjiro’s presence proves that. (She wonders if she should have suspected anything. She comes away unsure.) And that’s another thing that she has no idea how she should even start responding to.

Once she’s at a point where the world sort of makes sense again, it’s just her and Fuuka. “Are we still going to the cafe?” The other girl asks, looking as unsure as Yukari feels.

The cafe? That was meant to be a celebration. At this moment, there’s so little worth celebrating, it almost feels like a joke. There’s not much to be happy about, right now.

But they’re still alive. And Yukari supposes that’s as good of a reason to celebrate as any.

* * *

  
  


Out of everyone involved in this mess, Yukari’s pretty sure Mitsuru’s the only one who’s actually managing to get things done anymore. Not like that’s hard to figure out, when barely anyone wants to leave the building. (Not that she can say why. Sunlight, she knows, would probably be good for her. It just doesn’t hold any appeal right now.)

It’s sort of disconcerting, but it feels right all the same. Of course Mitsuru would have jumped right into seeing how much everyone remembers outside of their little group.

And of course the answer is ‘not much.’ Or nothing, for those truly dedicated to keeping their sanity.

“For their own safety, and so we don’t lose all our information like my father did after the explosion, I’ve asked that they send me all their research.” Like any of them would know the first thing to do with information about monsters from another world that they will, hopefully, never have to deal with again. Or how to do anything with it. (Well, Fuuka might, if it’s the sort of information her powers work to compile, and the same could probably be said of Mitsuru, but there’s still the fact that it’s unlikely to be all that relevant.)

Yukari nods along, because she’s not sure she could do anything else. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m not entirely sure. However, destroying it is out of the question.” She sounds more certain of this than Yukari has felt about anything in the past few days.

“Really? You’re not scared someone will use it to… make another Fall, or something?” It’s not a high risk, not when none of them seriously believe they’ll have to deal with Shadows ever again, and when nobody else is even aware that they exist. But she still worries about it, just a little.

“I am… fairly certain no one ever managed to recover that.” The fact that Mitsuru actually has to think about it would be worrying if Yukari didn’t realize she has just as little idea what’s actually in those documents as the rest of them. But she does agree that there are probably no instructions left on how to kick-start the apocalypse. (And if she’s wrong, well, the world’s already lasted longer than she’d thought it would. So, really, it could be a lot worse.) “If they did, they certainly never told me about it.”

She supposes that’ll have to be enough. And it’s not like they won’t have time to sort things out- so long as nobody knows about the research’s existence, they’ll be able to take their time with however they decide to handle it.

It’s only half an hour later that Yukari realizes she’s unthinkingly counted herself in to deal with the Kirijo Group’s problems, if only in her head. It’s not even the first time she’s done this.

She supposes that this is just her life now.

* * *

  
  


This isn’t Shinjiro’s fault. Yukari knows this. None of this is Shinjiro’s fault, he was caught off-guard by this just as much as the rest of them.

She knows this, and yet, when she looks at him, she can’t help but think that Minato should be there instead. That things should be… just about any way other than how they actually are.

They shouldn’t have had to forget anything. They should have kept their memories, have been able to talk through everything that happened. Not have it all dumped back at once with no way for Yukari to keep her balance as she’s forced to question everything about her life. (And none of the questions are ones she likes the answers to.)

The Dark Hour should never have existed to begin with. The world seems to agree with her on that, otherwise her first point wouldn’t be in existence.

She guesses that, in a way, the sudden recovery of Apathy Syndrome victims, as well as all the lost memories, means it really did never exist. Not to anyone but a small group of teenagers who were so connected by it that, without, they’d be entirely different people.

But if that’s the case, they shouldn’t have remembered, no matter how much time passed.

Yukari is aware that she probably shouldn’t be trying to make sense out of Shadows. It never goes well. And now that they’re all gone, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Still, there’s so much that’s different than it should be, and she just can’t help listing it.

They all shouldn’t still have their powers. The Dark Hour is gone, and it’s what brought them out, the thing that made them not only possible, but necessary for survival.

Without the Dark Hour, Yukari doesn’t need Isis. She’d feel oddly empty if she were gone, but the ability to call upon blistering winds is something she’ll ideally never need again.

(But the world doesn’t fall in line with her ideals. If it did, it’d be very different.)

Of all the things that shouldn’t have happened, of all the ways that things shouldn’t be, but are regardless, there still is one that stands out most of all. And that is how Shinjiro shouldn’t be here. Or, at least, not while wearing Minato’s face.

Really, he should be dead, probably, except that all happened because of the Dark Hour, and if the Dark Hour wasn’t meant to exist, then Shinjiro being alive is probably how things should have gone, aside from the fact that she clearly remembers watching him die. Honestly, she should probably stop trying to apply logic to this before she burns herself out.

Living or dead, however, Yukari is positive that Shinjiro is supposed to actually look like Shinjiro, and not a Minato who lost a fight with some office supplies. (Originally, a paperclip. More recently, a pair of scissors. It’s not particularly stylish either way.)

Even more importantly, Minato should be here. He should be standing here, and listening to her problems, and being mostly quiet and polite until he wants to let out some of the most scathing humor known to man, at which point he will do so without a moment’s hesitation.

Honestly, just seeing his body in the kitchen is enough to make her uneasy, what with how Minato could not be permitted to attempt cooking, lest he set another baking sheet on fire. (He’d promised that it wouldn’t happen again, and that he knew where he went wrong. Nobody believed him.)

Yukari has to remind herself that none of this is Shinjiro’s fault. While his communication skills are questionable in their existence and function, it’s not that hard to see that he never asked for this, and he’s just as confused by it as the rest of them.

Besides, it’s really, really hard for Yukari to be mad at someone for coming back from the dead. She can’t find fault with anyone for wanting to live.

It’s just that, with Shinjiro, the opposite could prove to be true far too easily.

(She really, really doesn’t want to be mad at him for that. But she feels like she needs to find fault with him somehow, and this is the easiest method. Even if Akihiko seems to already have it covered. ...At least, Junpei tells her he does, anyway.)

Shinjiro is very much capable of making his own decisions. So was Minato. It’s sort of why Yukari’s mind is in this mess.

She doesn’t know the full story, of course, there are questions that can only be answered by the dead and the very recently resurrected, but she is well aware of the… general trajectory of Shinjiro’s original life path.

(She was there when it ended, after all. It’s hard to stay ignorant after witnessing something like that.)

And given that knowledge, and how Minato should also have possessed it- he was there, too!- it’s hard to see just how he decided this was a good idea.

There’s probably a number of spirits out there who’d jump at a second chance at life. So why give it to someone who could very easily just throw it away?

Yukari doesn’t understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Yukari? Yukari, are you all right?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aigis tries to figure out what to do next.

_ Aigis never forgot. _

_ She’s not entirely sure why, to be honest. It could have been her non-biological origin, the fact that her heart had been constructed from a Plume of Dusk, or maybe her memory banks had just been backed up so thoroughly that there was no getting past them without her express permission. _

_ Whatever the reason, however, the fact remains. She remembered everything, while her allies all forgot that they had lived any lives but those of normal human beings. _

_...Well. Almost all of them. There was, after all, one exception. _

_ Aigis was not originally created to have opinions, or emotions. Now that she does, the irony of being designed for such while also having a soul is not entirely lost on her. (Entirely. It’ll be awhile before she fully understands that sort of humor, but once she does, she will weaponize it mercilessly. She will also pick up sarcasm, and become arguably the most brutal Persona User in all of Japan.) And, because she can have opinions and emotions, she spent the first week or so of February trying to figure out how she felt about the presence of one Aragaki Shinjiro. _

_ They hadn’t spoken often, before his death. They couldn’t. He spent most of his time off doing his own thing, and her understanding of humanity at the time was… lacking, to say the least. It still was, but at least now she was capable of holding a conversation. _

_ They became friends either way. Why wouldn’t they? SEES had gone from ten beings to two, leaving Shinjiro the only person who Aigis had anything in common with. _

_ Knowledge of how the world nearly ended was a heavy burden to bear, but at least she didn’t have to face it alone. _

_ And, because of that, she decided that she was glad Shinjiro was there. _

_ It was Minato’s absence she had the most problems dealing with. From the moment she woke up, her greatest priority had been to be by his side, and now she couldn’t. He’d walked away from her, and she could somehow tell, before Shinjiro had as close to confirmed it as possible, that he was never coming back. _

_ Most people didn’t realize this. Most people would never realize this, leaving only the two of them and anyone that they chose to tell. _

_ They only chose one person, and it was hard to tell whether it was more Aigis’ decision or Shinjiro’s. (Shinjiro had already been considering the idea, faintly, in the back of his mind. It was Aigis who influenced the timing of it all.) _

_ Akihiko, too, was concerned by Minato’s disappearance. Whether or not it matched his happiness at Shinjiro being returned to the mortal plane was something nobody was tactless enough to ask about. As little as that meant when only two people were aware they could ask. _

And now, finally, there are more of them.

* * *

  
  


If someone were to ask Aigis, ten years ago, what she would do in a world without Shadows, the answer would probably not be anywhere close to what she is actually doing now that it is the case.

First of all, because she hadn’t really possessed an imagination back then, and thus could not believe she could ever exist in such a world, let alone with full functionality, even if she had tried. (As a matter of fact, it would have been physically impossible for her to even try.) Secondly, because she’d never seen a point in chasing after hypotheticals when this was the only world she would ever live in, unless something very drastic were to happen.

Mainly, however, the reason her answer would have differed from the eventual reality is because, even as it happens, she can’t fully bring herself to accept that she is watching the spirit inhabiting her Most Important Priority’s body brutally attacking a fringe of Minato’s hair with a pair of scissors.

And, yes, the term ‘attacking’ is completely warranted here. There’s never very much cut away at a time, only small snips, but there’s enough anger concentrated in each movement that, if Aigis didn’t know any better, she’d say Shinjiro’s blood ran as hot as Junpei’s. (Honestly, whether or not it does depends entirely on if that statement is being taken literally.)

“Your efforts may come out uneven,” She warns him, though at this point, it’s almost certainly a lost cause. She can already see just how tattered it will come out- a difficult feat, given how this has only just begun, but manageable nonetheless.

Shinjiro shrugs, pushing the scissors just that much more off-course. “Long as it’s out of the way. Can’t see anything with it there.”

He’s mentioned similar sentiments before, Aigis remembers, always as some sort of a joke. Or, at least, she’d taken it for his own brand of humor, but it’s never easy for her to tell. So she’s probably gotten it wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. (Though, normally, it’s her failing to see humor where it actually is present, usually with Junpei as a source. This is an entirely new brand of social failing, and one with no visible origin, especially given that it’s her.)

“Is it really that much of an inconvenience?” She asks, because she has no real point of reference when it comes to human hairstyles. She does, however, accept that having bangs as long as Minato’s, even just on one side, are probably not entirely practical.

She just needs to hear it put into words. Though she probably shouldn’t need any more confirmation than Shinjiro’s emphatic nod, and the grumbling afterwards that she may not have been meant to hear. “...Can’t even be the right color.”

And she doesn’t really have anything she can say to that. Isn’t sure even actual humans know how to respond to that kind of thing. All she can do is watch as one friend mutilates another’s style, because it’s the wrong length and color. (There may be other reasons, but if there are, she doesn’t see them.)

After taking a few hours to consider it, she eventually decides that reminding Shinjiro of the existence of hair dye would likely be in poor taste. If he’s any sort of rational, he’ll have realized that already.

It’s really not any of her business, anyway.

* * *

  
  


If there’s one thing everyone who knew Minato can agree on, despite his ever-shifting personality and fluid identity, it’s that he enjoyed music. One of the things that let Aigis adjust to Shinjiro’s presence was the absence of headphones on his person, something that has continued for about as long as he’s been back. (It’s still not a perfect shift. Even now, with the hair over his right eye tattered, she still finds herself almost slipping.)

Even if it does change, it won’t be the same pair. That is something Aigis keeps tucked away, next to an old screw that was meant as a gift, but which no longer has its recipient.

The music that would play through them is still there for her to partake in.

Aigis doesn’t really understand music. She knows humans find certain combinations of notes aesthetically pleasing, and that they like to make up words to go along to it, but the artistic expression of it all is something that she’s never even tried to consider before.

Still, for the first time since her creation, she finds herself interested. If only to know what it is about this particular selection of songs that Minato kept coming back to. She thinks it may help her to understand him a little better.

It defies all logic, but maybe, if she listens long enough, she’ll be able to figure out why he left in the first place. (If it was his choice, does it count as failing in her duty? She’s not sure. There’s nobody she trusts enough to ask.)

She can’t use the headphones, of course, not with the way her body is designed. But she doesn’t need headphones to listen to music, to try and understand beats and rhythms, and make the attempt to figure out just why Minato liked them so much.

She doesn’t get it. Not really. But she still tries, playing it over and over as if the Fool who became so dear to her heart could have left a message there, just for her.

...At least, she does until Yukari appears at her door to point out that it’s the middle of the night, and while Aigis might not have to, most of the people around the dormitory still need their sleep. After that, she puts the music away again, if just for the time being.

She still doesn’t understand it. Not one bit. Maybe she’s just not meant to see the appeal. (Maybe it’s a purely human thing, and being inhuman, she’ll never be able to appreciate it. But she doesn’t like thinking about that possibility.)

She’ll try again later, once she no longer has to worry about waking anyone up.

* * *

  
  


Still, as much as Aigis has gotten used to living life like a human, as much as it’s been necessary for the past month where almost nobody knew otherwise, the fact remains that she still isn’t one. And, when everyone already knows, there’s little point in pretending.

Especially not when her every reason for being here vanished at the end of January.

“Mitsuru-san.” She’s never been able to put inflection into her voice the way others do, not without focusing on doing so, but that makes this easier. It lets her distance herself from what she’s saying. “I was wondering when I am going to be… decommissioned.” (It took a long time for her to decide that this was the proper term for her to use. Even now, it still doesn’t sound quite right.)

“Never.” Mitsuru’s response is immediate, but then, she’s always tried to make herself sure of whatever she says. “Even if you weren’t your own person, it would be detrimental to the sanity of all Kirijo Group employees stationed on Yakushima.”

At least one of these is something Aigis should probably be concerned about. She’s just not sure which one. “What do you mean by that?”

Mitsuru takes it as a question about the second point. “Every time someone at the laboratory got too close to knowledge involving the Dark Hour, it has turned out to be a major mental health hazard. I’m not sure if it has the same effect on those who had no prior knowledge of it, but I do not intend to be the one to test it.” Given how there’s very little standing between the Kirijo Group and a tower of lawsuits featuring human rights violations, this is probably a good choice.

“I see. In that case, what should I do next?” She thinks she can stay at Gekkoukan for another year without risking her cover, nobody ever questions things at Gekkoukan, but she’s not sure what comes next. (She’s never had to think about that part before.)

“...It should be fine to keep going as you’ve been doing, if only because it doesn’t seem like anyone is likely to catch on. If you can’t find anything you’d like to do by the end of next year… Then, we might have a problem.”

It’s… not quite a dismissal, or at least Aigis doesn’t think it is, but the message is clear. She’s not going to receive any new orders, not for a long time, and she needs to find something she can do instead.

It’d be better if she had any idea where to start. Is there any real use for a combat gynoid who may never be able to safely reveal herself as such? Everyone else can ignore their Personas and go back to their daily lives, but she’s never been meant to do anything else.

She’s not going to tell anyone she’s uncertain, because that’s all any of them are now. They don’t quite fit in this new world.

But at least the others have a place. At least they know what it looks like, to live in a world where these things don’t happen. (In Mitsuru’s case, that’s mostly due to amnesia, but the point remains.) At least they weren’t built for a purpose that has since been discarded.

Aigis goes back to her room, and wonders just what kind of place she could have in this new world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Aigis appears to be adjusting well, this is mostly because she had a month-long head start.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinjiro learns how to live again.

_ Shinjiro’s story is one that has been told here before. _

_ He hadn’t wanted to come back to life, in any form whatsoever. If he were asked about it, he would have declined, plain and simple. He’d had his chance, he’d wasted it, and he believed that, if an extra life were to be given, it should have gone to someone who would have been able to properly appreciate it. (He could give a list, off the top of his head, of a number of more deserving people that he knew personally. In some cases, they’d even been alive more recently than he was.) _

_ Not that he was given the option. No, he was shoved right into Arisato’s body and ditched there on the streets of Tatsumi Port Island without so much as a warning. _

_ Forced into a life he didn’t deserve, surrounded by people who didn’t have even the slightest hint of the truth. _

_ He told Aigis out of necessity. She would have realized, eventually, that he wasn’t the person that it looked like he was, and he didn’t want to see what would happen if she found out on her own. _

_ Aki, on the other hand, he told because he wanted to. Most people, had they approached him, would have been left in the dark about his identity no matter how much of the Dark Hour they were told about, but this was his brother. The one person who’d always wanted him around, even when nobody else did. If there was anyone it was safe to tell, it was him. _

_ So he reached out. And he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, not really. (Not when it gave him back the one thing he’d hated to lose.) There were a lot of things he wasn’t comfortable talking about, and they were bound to come up eventually, but he was actually almost okay with it. _

_ The world was a scary place to come back to, but between him, Aki, and Aigis, Shinjiro could keep his presence their little secret, and maybe everything would be all right. _

_ The others could have been let in, perhaps, if they noticed. But they would have needed to approach him first, had some reason to suspect. _

_ And they didn’t. So he could stay hidden. Until, eventually, he could bring himself to let go of the ruse. _

He’s not hiding anymore.

* * *

  
  


The reaction to his return isn’t really what he expected. Nobody accuses Shinjiro of trying to take Arisato’s place, don’t really seem to have anything against him being there at all. No welcomes back, either, but he’d expected that part. He’s fine with it. (At least, that’s what he tells himself.)

“It is good that everybody remembered,” Aigis tells him, a lot less relaxed than she’s been this whole month. “I was… beginning to fear that they would not.”

That makes two of them.

“Not sure what I would have done, then,” He admits. He’d barely managed to drop the act to begin with, he’s not sure he could have done so if there was no chance of his being recognized.

“I am sure you would have figured something out.” Apparently, she has a lot more faith in him than he has in himself. (Not that this is a particularly difficult thing to achieve.)

Really, he’s not sure where she would have gotten that idea from. “I don’t know about that…” He mutters, shaking his head. “Things are just…”

(A hint of dark blue falls where he can see it.)

Aigis looks at him expectantly. “What is the matter?”

“Nothing,” He lies. “It’s nothing. Just- Help me find some scissors.” Arisato’s room probably has some, it has a little bit of everything tucked away, but searching will go faster with two people.

“...Why?”

There’s no good way for Shinjiro to explain it, no reason he can give that feels good enough. But he has to try anyway. “I need a haircut.” He needs a lot more than that, really, but this is something he thinks he can actually let himself have. (At least, if he messes this up, it’ll grow back.)

She doesn’t quite get it, of course, but that’s fine. He hadn’t expected her to. And, sure, the end result is more than a bit tattered and messy, but if it lets him wake up in the morning with clear vision, that’s a price he’s more than willing to pay.

Now that it’s gone, he’ll be able to breathe more easily.

* * *

  
  


Shinjiro makes a habit of not being on the first floor whenever Yoshino comes by.

It’s not that he has anything against her. Actually, they’d gotten along pretty well, back when they were both dead. (He probably shouldn’t consider that a glowing commendation, but they didn’t really talk a lot beforehand. After everything, he sort of wishes they had. They both could have used more friends.) It’s just that Yoshino’s forgotten ever knowing him, and all things considered, that really is something that’s best left alone.

Of course, it’s hard to avoid a person forever when they’re dating someone who lives in the same building as you. So Shinjiro really should have expected to encounter her eventually.

It’s not anything major, when it happens. Yoshino shows up, waits for Iori to come downstairs, and they go off together. It shouldn’t be anything that Shinjiro needs to think about. She doesn’t even recognize him.

She just seems so happy. Even missing such a large chunk of her life, it’s easy to see how that’s not stopping her from trying to live. He sort of envies her, if only because she clearly has an unfair advantage. (Her own body, being noticed from the start, not having to deal with memories of bleeding out on the pavement… Little things like that.)

“Is something wrong?” Yamagishi asks, directing his attention away from the door and back to the currently more likely fire hazard. “If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to…”

“No, it’s fine.” He went through the ordeal of being in public for this, the least the world could do is actually let him reach his goal. Or, well, Yamagishi’s goal, but it all amounts to the same thing. He’s sure they all want to see her produce something actually edible. “Iori just left.”

“That’s right, he was meeting with Chidori-chan today.” It takes her a few moments to say that, like she had to reassure herself that Iori wasn’t just trying to get out of being used as a guinea pig. “I’m glad he didn’t forget about her.”

“You mean today, or…?” This probably isn’t something that needs questioning, but he’s going to ask it anyway.

“In general. It’s just… If he had, there’d be no one who really knew her, would there?”

“...I would’ve.” Not as well as he could have, if he’d bothered to exchange more than three words with her back the first time they were alive, but well enough for two people who found themselves continually in the same situations. “It’d probably just confuse her if I tried talking to her, though.” It’s not like their acquaintanceship had ever been normal, after all.

Yamagishi nods along, but it’s easy to see she doesn’t quite get it. No one does. “If she remembered, do you think she’d be glad to see you here again?”

He actually has to think about it. “I mean, I don’t think she’d have been upset about it… and I’m not Iori, so that probably says something.” Of course, it helps that Yoshino, as far as he can tell, never actually had a proper conversation with Arisato. There’d be nothing for her to miss.

“I don’t know about that...” He might have asked for clarification, but this is where the talking needs to stop, because they have to try not to set everything on fire. Which shouldn’t need all of their focus, but it really is better to be safe.

At least the food turns out halfway decent.

* * *

  
  


Out of everyone, Shinjiro almost finds it easiest to spend time with Mitsuru. She’s always busy, and has never been much of one for conversation, but at least she’s not currently trying to make him face painful truths. (Or just ignoring him, like Takeba. Or Aigis, who means well, but can be trying company at the best of times.)

It’s not much more than an uneasy coexistence, but that still feels like more than he should be allowed to have.

Maybe that’s why he decides to speak up. “Did you ever figure out what you’re gonna do with all the…?” He’d say research, but he’s not sure how much of the gathered information was ever acted on. For all he knows, he could find a list of his abilities tucked away in there.

“Well, few enough people know about it that it hopefully shouldn’t need more security than a locked safe, but I am open to suggestions.” It’s an invitation to keep going on this track, an obvious one, and he can tell, because Mitsuru has never been good at small talk.

Shinjiro just shrugs, because really, figuring out where this kind of thing goes is not, and never has been, his job. “Just don’t expect me to come back if it all goes wrong.” At this point, he is firmly of the opinion that Personas are more trouble than they’re worth. (And even if he wasn’t, he’s never been able to consciously call on his powers without an Evoker, and all things considered, that probably wouldn’t be his best idea.)

“I wouldn’t ask you to.” He’s not sure if he should be relieved or offended. “You shouldn’t have been pulled into this in the first place.” It’s not quite an apology, but it has the same tone.

But Mitsuru doesn’t have anything to apologize for, so it works out regardless. “Not sure I could have avoided it. You’d have needed to keep Aki out for that, and, well… If you hadn’t shown up, he’d probably have stumbled into Tartarus eventually.” Not even looking for a fight- he’d have gone in just due to being curious.

Really, Mitsuru showing up is probably a big part in how they survived for as long as they did. Not that she appears to realize it. “I was being serious.”

“So was I. Really, I shouldn’t need to explain to you that my brother’s an idiot.” It takes him a few moments to realize that, yes, he did just claim Aki as family out loud. The closest they’ve ever gotten to saying it before was the names of their Personas. (Not that the most basic expressions of their souls being twins had come as any sort of surprise to them. It was just confirming something that they’d known for years, without any need to say it outright.) Still, Mitsuru doesn’t react, so he decides to pretend it just didn’t happen. “Doesn’t even know when he should leave well enough alone.”

“I think you’re the only person who has that particular problem with him.” She’s probably right. But then, Aki tends not to get close enough to other people for them to see that side of him. “And it’s not hard to see why he’d be concerned.”

And just when he thought he’d be free from having that brought up again. He supposes it’s his own fault for slipping back to this topic in the first place. “Dunno why he bothers. I’m here now, that’s what matters, right?” (He knows it’s not that simple. He just wants to be able to pretend, if only for a few moments.)

Mitsuru bites her lip, which is something Shinjiro isn’t sure he’s seen before. “I suppose, but…” She pauses for a moment, before apparently deciding that tact is not entirely necessary in this discussion. “That only helps if you’re planning to stay.”

He’d ask why she would ever consider otherwise, if not for the fact that he already knows the reason. “Don’t think I could do anything else.”

Mitsuru is visibly relieved by this, and Shinjiro takes this as a sign that it’s time to end the conversation. He really, really doesn’t want to talk about this right now.

He knows he’ll have to, eventually. But even then, she’s not the first one he’d choose to have this conversation with.

* * *

  
  


After another day, Shinjiro finally admits to himself that he has to try and talk things out with Aki, if only because that way they’ll at least be talking to each other. Unless, of course, it turns out that Aki has forgotten all about it, and things can return to normal without having to deal with everything.

Somehow, he doesn’t think this is something that Aki would forget. He also doesn’t have anything completely unrelated he can bring up, to make things easier.

He may as well get this over with now, before the rest of the dorm starts trying to poke at their personal business. “You know I’m not going to disappear if you look away for more than a minute, right?” He asks, less jokingly than he would have wanted. He didn’t have to deal with this back in February. (Of course, this is due more to Aki’s lack of understanding during February than anything else, but he’s choosing to ignore that part.)

Aki flinches away. Which is, of course, not helping. “I-I know that.” Shinjiro isn’t entirely convinced.

“Then stop acting like I will.” He’d give an ultimatum, if there was literally anything he could threaten that wouldn’t be crossing the very obvious line drawn with his blood. He’s not that cruel. “Doesn’t exactly make this any easier.”

It’s already impossible for him to forget he should be dead. He doesn’t need his brother to keep hammering it in.

“Then what am I supposed to be doing?” Aki’s tone of voice apparently can’t decide if he’s trying to complain or begging for help.

Shinjiro just shrugs, because it’s not like he has an answer, either. The closest person to having any of that is Mitsuru, and she’s far too busy keeping things on Yakushima from self-destructing to help other people work through their personal issues. (At least, not without being asked beforehand. She actually thinks it would be a nice break. It’s just that, as is usual with SEES, nobody ever thinks to ask.)

“I mean, outside, we should probably pretend nothing’s happened, for however long that works out.” He doesn’t think they have to worry too much about that, the outside world is completely clueless, and if no one’s noticed him yet, they’re probably not about to start to. “Did Mitsuru tell you what happens to people who get too close to remembering?” Caesar’s name was the only thing Aki managed to reclaim during February, and from what he’s heard, that may actually be a good thing, unless Persona Users are just an exception in general.

Given the consequences, experimentation is not very high on anyone’s priority list.

Aki just nods, which is fair given that the whole point of SEES was to stop Shadow-related incidents from turning people into vegetables.

“So, you know, we shouldn’t really do anything to risk that, but I don’t think it’ll be a concern?” Most of the adults they would have confided in are gone, now, and they have little to no reason remaining to interact with those that would have been in the know. So Shinjiro’s not going to let himself worry about it.

From the look he’s getting right now, Aki isn’t all that convinced. But at least it’s nervousness about something that’s not entirely to do with Shinjiro, which he’s taking as progress.

“I guess you’d know. You’ve got the hardest job.” For a moment, it actually seems like it’ll stop there. It doesn’t. “Well, so long as you actually do it.”

He’d be offended, if it were anyone else. (He still is, just a little.) But he is entirely capable of recognizing that, for the two of them, having an honest and open conversation is like pulling teeth.

“Well, what other choice do I have?” And he doesn’t let himself stop for longer than it takes to breathe, because they both know what the other option is. “I don’t want to die again.”

After he says it, he realizes it’s the truth. He’s still not sure what living, for him, will entail, but he still prefers it over the alternative. And not just because, if Arisato ever comes back, he’d probably want his body to be in good condition.

He’s not sure he should be allowed to, but this is something that he wants for himself.

If he can ever figure out how to get there.

Aki’s relief at hearing this is almost tangible. “Just making sure.” As if that hasn’t been the basis of most of their interactions in recent weeks. It’d be annoying, if Shinjiro didn’t sometimes need the reminder himself.

“...Guess I can’t blame you.” He’d say it seemed like a good idea at the time, but something tells him that wouldn’t be appreciated. “I… really wasn’t okay back then.” (He’s not sure he can be called okay now.) “Though I guess there’s one good thing about the whole mess.”

“Which would be…?” Shinjiro gets the distinct feeling that, if he doesn’t give a satisfactory answer, Aki is probably going to hit him, and that’d be bad whether or not Castor feels like being cooperative today.

“Well, I stuck around mostly because I didn’t have anything else to do, but… it wasn’t always just me.” Most of what happened back then is stuff he’s decided he’s taking back to the grave, but this, at least, he wants to share with his brother. “Do you… want to hear what Miki’s like now?”

He’s not sure he’s doing this right. But it’s an offer of peace, and Aki accepts it.

For once, he lets himself think that things will be okay.

* * *

  
  


He knows he doesn’t deserve this.

Shinjiro could, if prompted, give a decently long list of reasons that he should have stayed dead, and an even longer list of people that he thinks would be a better fit. Not that he was consulted about it, or this wouldn’t be happening.

Still, nobody seems to blame him for Arisato being gone, unless he were to count Takeba generally not talking to him, but she already wasn’t talking to him after he dismantled Arisato’s harem, so he supposes he hasn’t really lost anything if that’s the case.

Nobody doubts that he’s who he says he is, though the presence of Mitsuru and Yamagishi probably helps with that. And while, with the exception of Aki, nobody seems particularly overjoyed to have him around, they’ve adapted to his presence almost immediately. (They’re not adapting quite as well to Arisato being gone, but that’s another story.)

Most importantly, he’s not lying to anyone. He’ll have to put on a new act the second he leaves the building, but while he’s here, he’s allowed to be himself. (Like everything else about the situation, he’s not sure how long it will last.)

Sitting down on Arisato’s bed, he holds his watch as it counts the seconds of a life that he shouldn’t be living, but was thrown into anyway. Back to where he has to interact with people every now and again. Back to where he can be seen, and stared at. Where he’s expected to be someone else, if only in public. Where he can’t even use his own name.

But it’s also where he can talk to people, and know that they can hear him. Where there are people who’ve missed him, even if they’d never dare say it aloud. And that means something.

There is nobody in SEES who isn’t, at least slightly, questioning this whole thing. Shinjiro is as far from an exception as it’s possible to get.

And yet, now, the night before the pretzel that is SEES’ personal timeline gains another knot, he is only actively wondering two things.

He wants to know how this could be possible to begin with. And, given how it clearly is, he wants to know why it was him.

How is it that he can be so fortunate?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not too sure about this, but Shinji insisted, so... Here it is. It's even not completely depressing, which is honestly more than I'd expected.
> 
> If I move on to The Answer, it'll probably be a bit less serious than this, if only so I can point out the fact that, for SEES, time apparently refuses to simply move in a straight line.


End file.
